January 2012 Archives

Wage and hour lawsuit. Did that phrase just send a chill down your spine? In house counsels face a myriad of legal issues every day. Employment law is one of these thorny subjects. Violations of wage laws can result in costly litigation.

Louboutin sold 240,000 pairs of shoes priced at $1,000 a pop since then. That's why the company was none-too-pleased when YSL made shoes with the same signature sole. They trampled on Louboutin's toes, if you will.

Kodak has been in business for 131 years. The company pioneered innovations in print film. It was widely considered the "Google" of its day. Kodak film accounted for 90% of the market in 1976. Kodak cameras accounted for 85% of the camera market.

Up through the 1990s the company was heralded as one of the top 5 most valuable brands, according to The Economist. Ironically, its downfall can partially be attributed to its own innovation: the digital camera, invented by Kodak in 1975.

The Jacksonville Jaguars' Paul Vance apparently fumbled in drafting a series of team contracts, and now he's out of a job.

The Jaguars' new owner fired Vance as the team's general counsel and vice president of football operations Sunday, ESPN reports. A potentially costly typo is likely to blame.

The typo appears in the contracts of seven former assistant coaches who signed contract extensions in 2010, according to ESPN.

The team intended the extensions to last two years, through the end of the 2011 season. Instead, the contracts explicitly state the agreements "shall terminate on the later of January 31, 2012 or the day after the Jaguars' last football game of the 2012 season and playoffs," according to ESPN.

New Yorker Minhee Cho stopped by a Papa John's pizza chain for dinner last week. Cho ended up slapped with a racial slur -- on her Papa John's receipt.

The store employee typed out that her name was "lady chinky eyes."

Cho, a communications manager for an investigative journalism non-profit, tweeted a picture of the offending receipt. The photo went viral. The company is now facing a flurry of criticism and negative publicity.

A spokesperson for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced on Wednesday that the agency has extracted a $3.1 million settlement in a racial bias suit filed against PepsiCo.

The EEOC's Pepsi suit focused on the company's policy of not hiring workers who have arrest records, as well as those convicted only of minor offenses. Though applied neutrally, the policy disproportionately affected African-American job applicants.

Approximately 300 of those applicants will share in the settlement monies.

Rising pension and medical-benefits costs are the main reasons for Hostess' bankruptcy, the company said in court papers. To address those issues, Hostess plans to continue talks with 12 employee unions that represent 83% of the company's workers, the Journal reports.

Consumers rarely opt-out of class action settlements. Some trash the notices and others forget after they're set aside. And if companies are really lucky, a few won't even submit a claim.

But Heather Peters is not an ordinary class member. She's upset with the Honda hybrid settlement and has launched a small claims court campaign. She's urging consumers to take the car manufacturer to court and ask for the statutory maximum.